Elizabeth Politzer - Why should scientists care about gender?

Why should scientists care about gender?

Elizabeth Pollitzer PhD is co-founder and Director of Portia, an organization devoted to improving gender equality in STEM and advancing the understanding of the gender dimension in STEM

Elizabeth will be joining us to talk about her work with Portia, an organization devoted to improving gender equality in STEM and advancing the understanding of the gender dimension in STEM.

Until very recently, the prevailing attitude to gender equality in science was that science should be ‘gender neutral’ to be good, that is, it should not matter if the researcher was a woman or a man, or the research subject was female or male. This belief has been now challenged by extensive scientific evidence which shows that ‘gender neutral science’ is an illusion that hides extensive male gender bias in science knowledge and practice. The consequences are that science has more evidence for males/men than for females/women and quality of research outcomes is frequently worse for women than for men.

Furthermore, gender blind and gender biased research contributes to the reproducibility crisis, e.g. Amgen failed to reproduce 47 out of 53 foundational papers in oncology. The key drivers for integrating gender perspective into science knowledge production and application are: 1) enhanced excellence, 2) opportunities to turn scientific discoveries into new markets, 3) making innovation more responsive to societal needs and more sustainable; and 4) better return on investment in women’s higher education and better use of their creative, intellectual, and innovation talent. The aim of this talk is to present this evidence and how research funding and research performing organisations in Europe, and beyond, have responded.

We will be hosting a casual networking happy hour afterwards and invite anyone to attend either or both events. Everyone is welcome to attend, no RSVP necessary.